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Rumors of the death of the Anglican Communion are premature, but relevant?

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Once again we return to the media myth that the doctrinal wars in the Anglican Communion were caused by the 2003 election of the first openly gay and noncelibate bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church, the tiny Diocese of New Hampshire, to be specific.

Yes, it would make religion writers' lives much easier if that were true. 

However, sometimes professionals who write about complicated news events have to wrestle with complicated information that may require -- brace yourselves -- the addition of an entire sentence or two of background in a news story. It may even require talking about doctrinal issues other than those directly linked to sexuality.

So, once again, let us return to what your GetReligionistas have long called "Anglican timeline disease." The latest episode is linked to the announcement by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby that he is inviting 37 archbishops -- note the specific number -- to a January meeting that he will host to "discuss key issues face to face, including a review of the structures of the Anglican Communion."

This news led to waves of speculation, followed by a truly fascinating tweet from the Lambeth Palace press office. The following was not taken from The Onion:


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Here is a new federal data base reporters can mine for religion angles

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Here is a new federal data base reporters can mine for religion angles

On September 12th, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled its revamped College Scorecard (click here to see it), a trove of online data to guide parents and students on where to enroll that can also be a source of religion angles. The Obama Administration wisely scrapped its controversial plan for a college rating system, something of a mission impossible, and instead compiled hard numbers that citizens can judge for themselves.

The broad economic context was analyzed that same weekend by National Public Radio’s Adam Davidson, writing in The New York Times Magazine. For example, median income adjusted for inflation has remained nearly flat since 1974 while tuition at private universities has roughly tripled, and has quadrupled at public universities. Meanwhile those pricey college degrees have increased in importance for many careers. As the new Web site proclaims, “On average, college graduates earn $1 million more over their lifetimes than high school graduates.”

Much of this information was already available in those ubiquitous college guidebooks or the College Navigator site from the government’s National Center for Education Statistics. But the new site crunches Internal Revenue Service data to report graduates’ earnings 10 years out and how many are managing to repay student loans.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, the field’s journalistic bible, notes an important gap: Those newly added numbers cover only students who received federal loans or grants. Also, they lump together all students at an institution while earnings vary wildly depending on academic subject. The American Council on Education complains that the feds produced this setup without any review by outside experts.

No religious campuses are among the feds’ list of 23 schools commended for low cost leading to high incomes.


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Business Insider actually likes news stories about Scientology, religion and, yes, business

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I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find an unlikely source for religion news: Business Insider, a 6-year-old web site founded by former – and disgraced -- Wall Street research analyst Henry Blodget, who is its CEO and editor-in-chief.

The site covers celebrity news, technology and all kinds of business out of New York. We have previously reported on some of their work. Some of their content is aggregated from elsewhere but they also do original reporting and commentary. Recently, that’s included everything from President Barack Obama’s tweet in favor of the Muslim youth arrested in Irving, Texas, because he brought an object to school that supposedly looked like a bomb to the decline of organized religion in America.

But its specialty is a alternative religion that is very tough for any journalist to cover: Scientology. Business Insider gave a lot of PR to “Going Clear,” the HBO film (that premiered March 29) about Scientology and is still doing follow-ups. A recent sample:

As director Alex Gibney prepares for the release of his latest movie, “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine,” it’s hard to pass up a chance to talk to the Oscar winner about his other recent film, the HBO Scientology documentary “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.”
At a recent screening of his Steve Jobs doc, Business Insider spoke with Gibney and asked him if he’s dealt with the same harassment by members of the Church of Scientology that former members of the church shown in the film say they have received.


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From Washington Post story on #IStandWithAhmed, three words that don't belong in a news story

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The arrest of a Muslim student in Texas for, um, bringing a clock to school has made headlines this week.

The Dallas Morning News has this overview:

On Monday afternoon, Ahmed Mohamed was the 14-year-old with a homemade clock, wearing a NASA T-shirt and a scowl as the police snapped handcuffs on his skinny wrists and led him from his high school.
By Tuesday, Ahmed was the kid stuck home from school, told not to return until police decided whether to charge him for what they called a hoax bomb. He wandered barefoot through his house then, garnering barely a glance from the three generations of Sudanese immigrants who are his family.
But Ahmed woke up Wednesday as #IStandWithAhmed — a viral symbol of government authoritarianism or out-of-control Islamophobia, depending which of his tens of thousands of Twitter followers you ask.
By the end of the day, in reports across the world, Ahmed was a hero and the officials who called his clock a fake bomb were a joke. President Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg were among the world’s most powerful people lined up to know Ahmed better. And police said they wouldn’t pursue charges.
The joke to his big sisters, Ayisha and Eyman, is that Ahmed was invisible on social media before an outcry over his arrest made him an online sensation. Their tech whiz of a brother had no Twitter account, no Facebook, no Instagram or Snapchat.
So the sisters set him up on Twitter as @IStandWithAhmed — a slogan that the world had given the boy as his story spread overnight. The young women stared at their phones Wednesday morning, stunned as the phrase became one of the most popular memes of the day.

Over at the Washington Post, journalists went Googling and produced a story — aggregation mostly — on what the click-bait headline describes as "The history of anti-Islam controversy in Ahmed Mohamed’s Texas city."

In this age of aggregation too often posing as journalism, of course, it's all about the clicks. Still, I found myself wondering if any of the Post journalists actually picked up a telephone and talked to anyone for this story.


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NPR look at Womenpriests offers some welcome balance (but is missing a key fact)

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With the arrival of Pope Francis in the U.S. Acela zone only days away, news consumers can expect to see a growing number of advance features about trends in the American church. Most of these will be linked to the now-familiar template that this pope is allegedly more doctrinally progressive than the American bishops and, thus, his visit provides a note a hope, somehow, for those who want to "reform" -- scare quotes intentional -- church doctrine.

With that in mind, it is important to note that a recent National Public Radio feature about the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement includes something very significant, a kind of journalistic landmark in this day and age.

This story contains actual material drawn from an interview with an authoritative human being -- a woman even! -- who speaks in defense of the ancient Christian tradition of an all-male priesthood. We'll come back to this shocking development in a moment.

As is the norm for these features, the NPR team opens with the story of a woman who, after decades of frustration in the church, decided to seek ordination in a movement that, by definition, exists outside the borders of canonical Roman Catholicism. Here are the crucial paragraphs:

Caryl Johnson calls herself a priest but technically she was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. That happened automatically in 2011 when she was ordained by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

The organization acknowledges that it's violating church requirements but says the ban on female priests is unjust. So far the group has ordained 188 women around the world.

For many Catholic women there's a big gap between what they believe and church dogma.


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Covering the new female Buddhist monks, which reminds AP of Catholic scandals

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When journalism professors discuss about the traditional American Model of the press, with its emphasis on accuracy, balance and a lack of editorializing, we often talk about how this model is demonstrated in the work of wire services.

In fact, in recent decades advocates of edgier, trendier news styles have often gone out of their way to contrast their "new journalism" philosophies with "mere" wire-service writing. You know, that old-school journalism with its emphasis on inverted-pyramid hard-news stories and a neutral, balanced approach to reporting that is supposed to serve the needs of readers in news sources across America and around the world?

But clearly, someone has been putting something in the water some folks are drinking in AP land, especially when it comes to coverage of religious and moral issues.

Consider this recent AP feature on the rise of female monastics or "bhikkhunis" in modern Buddhism. On the surface, the key journalistic issue here is whether AP editors will allow any voices in traditional Buddhism to speak in defense of their beliefs. Surprise! The answer is no. Only the advocates of women being allowed to serve as monks are interviewed. 

Then there is something else interesting going on in this story. Read carefully:

NAKHON PATHOM, Thailand (AP) -- On a rural road just after daybreak, villagers young and old kneel reverently before a single file of ochre-robed women, filling their bowls with rice, curries, fruits and sweets. In this country, it's a rare sight.
Thailand's top Buddhist authority bars women from becoming monks. They can only become white-cloaked nuns, who are routinely treated as domestic servants. Many here believe women are inferior beings who had better perform plenty of good deeds to ensure they will be reborn as men in their future lives.
Yet with the religion beset by lurid scandals, female monastics or "bhikkhunis" are emerging as a force for reform, not unlike activists in the Christian world seeking gender equality including ordination of women as priests in the Catholic Church.


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Papal riddle: How does Washington Post cover Pope Francis without quoting people?

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Here we go again.

Whether it's a flight of editorial fancy, as I think of it, or the increasingly popular "omniscient anonymous voice," as tmatt complains, the Washington Post has just spun out another sweeping, opinion-laced advance on Pope Francis' scheduled U.S. visit.

Francis is "often dubbed the coolest-ever leader of the Roman Catholic Church," the Post says. He's brought a "dose of magical realism" to the pontificate. He wants to be "something akin to a global Jiminy Cricket, a voice of conscience whether you believe in God or not." Who is speaking? Good question.

But wait, there’s more:

Francis has turned out to be a natural global leader. But he has also been a surprise to the cardinals who thought they were putting a cautious moderate on Saint Peter’s throne.
To the chagrin of conservatives, he has evolved into a sort of pontifical version of Reagan-appointed Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose judicial decisions have upended his supporters’ expectations. After two popes who concentrated on doctrine and traditional families, Francis is clearly in a different mold.

Whew. Any wonder that this story goes way over 2,400 words?

The main point is that Francis is a "riddle," a puzzling blend of opposites. He is innovative in tone and manner, welcoming gays and easing the return of Catholics who have divorced and remarried. He is liberal in social issues, calling for better care of the poor and the environment. Yet he is a moral traditionalist who opposes same-sex marriage and transgenderism. In terms if on-the-page content, in other words, he sounds rather like St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

Externally, Francis "has become a formidable diplomat, interjecting the Vatican into everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to U.S.-Cuba relations," the Post says. Internally, he is a strong pope, who fired his secretary of state and two top officials of the Vatican Bank.


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About UFOs, Trump and that poll showing lots of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim

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So, President Barack Obama's faith is back in the news.

Precisely, the headlines concern a new poll showing a surprising (or not?) number of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim.

USA Today boils down the latest news this way:

Despite a Hawaii birth certificate and repeated professions of his Christian faith, fairly large numbers of Americans still believe President Obama is a Muslim born outside of the United States.

Over at the Washington Post, Godbeat pro Sarah Pulliam Bailey offers this rundown of the poll numbers:

Even though President Obama nods to his Christian faith regularly in both serious and light-hearted settings, a large number of Americans still believe he is a Muslim. According to a new CNN/ORC poll, 29 percent of Americans say they think that Obama is a Muslim, including 43 percent of Republicans.
Sixty-one percent of Democrats say Obama is a Protestant, compared with 28 percent of Republicans and 32 percent of independents. Also, according to CNN, 54 percent of those who support Donald Trump say they believe Obama is a Muslim.
Education comes into play: 63 percent of college graduates believe Obama is a Protestant compared with just 28 percent of those who do not have college degrees.
Among all adults, 39 percent say they believe Obama is a Protestant or another kind of Christian, another 11 percent say he’s not religious, and 14 percent that they just don’t know. Of those who took the survey, 4 percent believe he is Catholic, 2 percent think he is Mormon, 1 percent believe he is Jewish, and 1 percent think he is something else.
The number of Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim appears to have jumped since polls from earlier years of his presidency.

Keep reading, and former GetReligionista Bailey does a really nice job of providing insight and background related to Obama's faith and what he has said about it.

But here's my question: Are these poll numbers related to the number of Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim really "surprising" or "startling," as news reports described them?

 


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Shocking! NPR talks to actual evangelical leaders about Donald Trump and ...

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Talk about a bad headline! What do you think when you read a headline like this one on the National Public Radio website? A recent "It's All Politics" feature proclaimed: "True Believer? Why Donald Trump Is The Choice Of The Religious Right."

For starters, the "Religious Right" label says more than "evangelical voters." It implies that top leaders on the moral right are jumping onto the Trump mini-bandwagon (with 30-plus percent in polls) in the swarm of GOP White House candidates. It implies, at the very least, that some leaders of big evangelical organizations -- think Concerned Women for America or groups linked to the Southern Baptist Convention -- must be offering muted praise for Trump.

Thus, I assume that this NPR feature was simply the latest in a mainstream media wave linking the vague term "evangelical" with Trump's early surge, a trend I wrote about in a recent "On Religion" column for the Universal syndicate (and the "Crossroads" podcast is here).

That's kind of how this NPR report began, with more of the same old same old.

... Trump is winning over Christian conservatives in the current Republican presidential primary. That's right -- the candidate currently leading among the most faith-filled voters is a twice-divorced casino mogul, who isn't an active member of any church, once supported abortion rights, has a history of crass language -- and who says he's never asked God's forgiveness for any of it.
If that sounds like an Onion story, it's not. His blunt talk against a broken political system in a country rank-and-file evangelicals believe is veering away from its traditional cultural roots is connecting. He pledges to "Make America Great Again," a positive spin on the similar Tea Party refrain of "Take Our Country Back."
That redeeming message -- and his tough talk on immigration, foreign policy and the Republican establishment -- is quite literally trumping traditional evangelical concerns about a candidate's morality or religious beliefs.

Note that the report claims that Trump is "winning over Christian conservatives," as opposed to winning with some Christian conservatives at the local level.

So what does the rest of this NPR report actually show?


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